Author: andrewcareaga

Former higher ed PR and marketing guy at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) now focused on freelance writing and editing and creative writing, fiction and non-fiction.

Drexel plans a westward expansion

One of the arguments we at the University of Missouri-Rolla used to bolster our case for a name change to Missouri S&T had to do with the projected drop in high school graduates in the Midwest. Because of the projected decline, we explained, our university must more aggressively recruit students nationally and internationally — and a name that better described our university’s essence would aid that effort.

Drexel University in Philadelphia is also anticipating that decline — a 10 percent drop in Pennsylvania beginning in 2009 — and is looking to the west. But rather than expanding its reach in the traditional fashion, Drexel is planning to open a stand-alone campus near Sacramento, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. (Link via University Business.)

Drexel President Constantine Papadakis says a friend has pledged to donate 1,100 acres of California farmland to help Drexel establish the university.

Under the proposal, the university would sell 500 acres of the donated land to generate at least $100 million that would be used to finance construction of the infrastructure. Papadakis said he was confident of raising another $100 million in donations once a deal is in place.

“Not many universities have an opportunity to start on donated land with $100-million-plus funding opportunity,” says Papadakis.

Oh, for just half the funding opportunity.

Yet another scalable, cutting-edge blog post from the industry standard for the next generation, delivered with full functionality

Any PR pro who eschews news release clutter will appreciate The Gobbledygook Manifesto, by David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

Scott … says it best in introducing his manifesto: “Oh jeez, not another flexible, scalable, groundbreaking, industry-standard, cutting-edge product from a market-leading, well positioned company! Ugh. I think I’m gonna puke!” In every company description, on websites, in press releases, in corporate pamphlets, the same adjectives get used over and over until they are meaningless. Scott analyzed thousands of these offerings and presents a collection of the most over-used and under-meaningful phrases…and strategies for making the most of these communication opportunities.

“The results,” Scott writes, “were staggering. The news release wires collectively distributed just over 388,000 news releases in the nine-month period [of his study], and just over 74,000 of them mentioned at least one of the Gobbledygook phrases. The winner was ‘next generation,’ with 9,895 uses.

There were over 5,000 uses of each of the following words and phrases: “flexible,” “robust,” “world class,” “scalable,” and “easy to use.” Other notably overused phrases with between 2,000 and 5,000 uses included “cutting edge,” “mission critical,” “market leading,” “industry standard,” “turnkey,” and “groundbreaking.” Oh and don’t forget “interoperable,” “best of breed,” and “user friendly,” each with over 1,000 uses in news releases.

Ack.

Something is horribly wrong here.

“Your marketing and PR is meant to be the beginning of a relationship with buyers (and journalists),” Scott writes. “Here’s the rule: when you write, start with your buyers, not with your product.”

Good advice. Sometimes even the best of us get so caught up in our petty bureaucracies and clearance loops that we forget our audience. Some of us even forget that we are — or should be — commmunicators first, marketers second. Shame on us. Kudos to Scott for reminding us to keep our buyers in mind.

Via the ChangeThis Newsletter.